New Delhi: India has established three new operationally active military garrisons along critical stretches of the India-Bangladesh border—at Bamuni near Dhubri, Kishanganj, and Chopra, according to official and intelligence sources. Each of these locations has been identified as a potential vulnerability in India’s border defence matrix. By fortifying these sectors, New Delhi seeks not merely to plug tactical gaps but also to signal strategic resolve.
This, further, to bolster its military and diplomatic stance along the Indo-Bangladesh border, marks a decisive shift in New Delhi’s approach toward regional security management, as per government officials. The move comes in the wake of a contentious meeting in Dhaka on October 25, during which Bangladesh’s interim leader reportedly handed Pakistan’s Army chief a book containing a map depicting sections of India’s Northeast as part of a so-called “Greater Bangladesh,” sources said. What might have seemed a symbolic gesture has, in fact, triggered a measured but firm response from India-one that underlines the government’s growing emphasis on deterrence, territorial integrity, and strategic preparedness.
Of particular relevance to this development, the Siliguri Corridor is the narrow 22-kilometre-wide land bridge that connects mainland India with its eight northeastern states. The corridor has conventionally been called the “Chicken’s Neck” and certainly considered one of India’s most critical geostrategic vulnerabilities. Any instability along the borders adjoining this corridor can reduce access to the Northeast and impair India’s operational flexibility there. It now seems that by consolidating its military strength around the corridor, India is securing perhaps its most important strategic lifeline against any potential encirclement or coercive behaviour.
The controversy over the map has been read as an orchestrated provocation in New Delhi - one calculated to test India’s diplomatic restraint and perhaps plant seeds of mistrust within the precarious balance of South Asia. Involvement by the Pakistani military establishment, ever a sensitive variable in the regional equation, adds depth to that complexity. Indian officials have described the Dhaka gesture as a “planned provocation” because such acts erode historic goodwill and reintroduce hostility where mutual respect had prevailed.
The official response of the Ministry of External Affairs recently reiterated the foundational commitment to peace and cooperation that marks India’s standpoint, but its tone was notably assertive. The ministry underlined the fact that while India continues to value stable and friendly ties with all neighbours, any challenge to its sovereignty will be met with clarity and strength. The doctrinal shift away from passive tolerance of symbolic affronts to an approach defined by “peace through strength”-is captured in the statement that “the era of ambiguous responses is over.”
This emerging strategic orientation toward Bangladesh is mirrored in public sentiment within India. There is a sense of dismay and shock across sections of Indian society because of the historic role India played in Bangladesh’s liberation in 1971. The developments are seen by many as the betrayal of shared history and sacrifice.
Beyond the immediate diplomatic strain, India’s actions also fit into a broader regional security architecture. New Delhi’s contemporary doctrine blends together the elements of assertive diplomacy, infrastructural expansion, and rapid mobilisation capability. The establishment of new garrisons, therefore, is not an isolated reaction but a part of systemic recalibration-linking border infrastructure to intelligence integration and forward-operational readiness into one coherent national security strategy. It also sends a signal to external actors desiring to exploit regional divides that India is watchful, cohesive, and determinedly pre-emptive against destabilising manoeuvres.
At the same time, India’s leadership has tempered firmness with restraint. Officials have exhorted regional partners to eschew divisive narratives and focus on shared prosperity. The appeal for “mutual respect and sensitivity” only underlines how India has not given up the preference for diplomacy over confrontation, even as it declines to be a bystander to every threat against its sovereignty. This balance between engagement and deterrence has become a defining feature of India’s 21st-century statecraft.